Hira Suka Patalir, the Bard of Kachargarh

Hira Suka Patalir is the heroic musician of the Kachargarh deliverance. When Pari Kupar Lingo determines that the divine children shut in the cave can only be freed if they themselves push away the sealing boulder, he fetches Patalir, a kingri-player from the village of Dhanegaon. Seated at the cave mouth, Patalir plays music in the martial 'veer rasa' mode that fills the children with the strength and courage to roll the stone aside; as it moves, the stone crushes him. Though a mortal rather than a god, he is a named individual central to the Gond origin epic and is commemorated at the annual Kachargarh pilgrimage.

Domains

• music

Powers

• to fill the imprisoned children with courage through his music

Relations

• ally: Jango, the First PriestessHis music completes the deliverance that the priestess Jango asks Lingo to bring about.Motiravan Kangali, Pari Kupar Lingo Gondi Punem Darshan (Nagpur: Ushakiran Prakashan, 1986). (secondary)
• subordinate to: Lingo the Culture-BringerSummoned and directed by the culture-hero Pari Kupar Lingo, who recognises that only music can rouse the children to free themselves.Motiravan Kangali, Pari Kupar Lingo Gondi Punem Darshan (Nagpur: Ushakiran Prakashan, 1986). (secondary)

Sources

• Hira Suka Patalir is the kingri-playing bard of Dhanegaon who, at Lingo's bidding, roused the imprisoned Gond gods to free themselves and was crushed by the falling boulder.: Motiravan Kangali, Pari Kupar Lingo Gondi Punem Darshan (Nagpur: Ushakiran Prakashan, 1986). (secondary); Mayuri Patankar, 'Memory and the Visual Politics of Gond Religion,' Seminar, no. 740 (2021). (secondary); Sahapedia, 'Kachargarh: Pilgrimage of the Gond Adivasis,' Sahapedia online encyclopaedia (2019). (secondary)